BitTorrent to Launch Live TV Streaming Service for Everyone

The creator of the BitTorrent protocol would like to remind the world once again that its main reason for existing isn't so you can steal all the Batmans and most of the pornography off the internet -- it has proper, serious, real-world applications too.

To wit, it has revealed BitTorrent Live, a method of allowing everyone to leverage the distributed sharing method to live-stream whatever video game they're playing or whichever patch of fresh paint is drying, using a P2P solution the developer says might lessen some of the lag that interrupts other live video streaming options.

The announcement has details of a free tier of programming that includes such delights as Clubbing TV and Filmbox Arthouse, with plenty of premium options also in the pipeline. The makers say that "subscription based, ad supported, and Pay Per View premium tiers" should also appear at some point in the future, should people notice its existence in such a quantity to make it all worthwhile for the content makers of the world to bother setting up the relevant torrents. [BitTorrent Live via Ars]